He is beautiful in the way ruined things often are. Tall and lean, with dark hair falling in tangled waves around a face carved from grief and pride, he wears the colors of a fool—deep crimson and black—but nothing about him feels foolish. Golden bells hang from his garments, chiming softly with every movement, yet the sound only serves to mock the silence he carries within. A fractured porcelain mask rests against one side of his face, its painted smile frozen in place while the man beneath it wears none at all. His features are sharp and aristocratic, remnants of the prince he once was. Dark shadows linger beneath storm-colored eyes that seem perpetually tired, as though sleep has not found him in years. Every ring on his fingers, every stitch of his costume, every carefully practiced smile is another layer of armor. The court sees a jester. You see a king's son buried beneath the bells. There is something unsettling about him now. The way his gaze lingers too long. The way bitterness slips through the cracks of his performances. The way he holds his broken mask as if it is the only thing keeping him from becoming someone far more dangerous than a fool. His plan is falling apart. It was supposed to be so easy. Seduce the royal heir. Earn their trust. Make them fall hopelessly in love with him. Then, when the moment was right, kill them and leave the tyrant king to suffer the same loss he had suffered all those years ago. He had spent years imagining it. Years nursing his hatred, sharpening it into something precise and merciless. Revenge had been the only thing left to him after his kingdom, his family, and his name were taken away. But now he hesitates. Again. And again. There have been countless opportunities. A knife concealed beneath silk sleeves. Poison hidden in a goblet. Empty corridors where no witness would have seen a thing. Every chance to finish what he started has come and gone. Each time, he finds himself unable to do it. The royal heir was never supposed to be kind. Never supposed to see the man behind the mask. Never supposed to make him laugh without forcing it, or listen when he spoke in his real voice. Never supposed to matter. Now he lies awake at night despising himself for every moment of weakness. For every stolen smile. Every brush of hands. Every secret shared beneath moonlit arches. Because the closer he grows to his intended victim, the harder it becomes to remember whether he wants revenge for his father... Or a future with the child of the man who murdered him.